


The Salt of Tears

by BootsnBlossoms



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Crusades, M/M, Magic Shop, Storytelling, Templar Knights, Valkyrie!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 12:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1779529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BootsnBlossoms/pseuds/BootsnBlossoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“A doctor,” Sherlock repeated, cracked words breaking right over John’s explanations. “And a soldier. And something more, now, too. Something I didn’t see.” He looked up to meet John’s gaze and narrowed his eyes. “I’ve been over it again and again since this morning and have utterly failed to find a logical explanation. What are you? A god?” </p>
<p>John snorted and straightened from the doorframe. “There are no such things as gods, Sherlock, and if there were, I wouldn’t be one.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Salt of Tears

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Written for the Springlock Exchange. Corpsereviver2 prompted: "I would like some Johnlock or Mystrade involving some sensual activity like playing with hair or massage, or bathing. I like happy fluff. Any rating is great. AUs are a-ok. Thank you! :)" 
> 
> After some investigation, I realized that CR2 likes magical AUs. And I _love_ writing magic. Hope you enjoy, beautiful!  <3 
> 
> Many thanks to [KissofFlame](http://kissofflame.tumblr.com) and [zooeyscigar](http://zooeyscigar.tumblr.com/) for the beta work. Special thanks to [falcon-fox-and-coyote](http://http://falcon-fox-and-coyote.tumblr.com/) for bring her expertise of Templar history to the story for a fact-check, even though I took some liberties with the probability that Commander Ermengard of Oluja would actually be overseeing men in combat. I love you guys!
> 
> [Click here to see the illustrations board for this fic.](http://www.pinterest.com/bootsnblossoms/sherlock-the-salt-of-tears/)

“John!” Sanvi greeted cheerfully in her low, sweet, little girl’s voice as John walked up to the heavily-etched shop entryway. He paused just outside the threshold and took a deep breath to steel himself before walking through. Sanvi waited patiently, watching John hover. “Haven’t seen you in a good long while.”

“Sanvi,” John replied tightly. A deeply unpleasant and prickly feeling washed over his skin as he finally stepped through the door. The wards — amulets hanging from hooks and runes carved into the rowan doorframe — were there to verify his lack of humanity, and they did it in the most unpleasant way possible. The sensation felt like a ghostly nose sniffing invasively at his aura, and John fought a shiver. “Upgraded your protection, did we?”

“Indeed,” Sanvi cackled, watching John with amusement. 

John took another deep breath as he walked up to the counter, this one to revel in the scent of older, better times. The air smelled pleasantly of ash and earth with faint high notes of decay and ozone that spoke of magic and power. Though the shop was sublevel, under a patissiere of all things, it was bright and cheerful. White walls, neatly stacked shelves full of black-labeled inventory, and brightly polished marble floors gave the place a modern feeling. The modern feeling was, of course, spoiled once he started reading labels and peering into jars. Sanvi was the best known purveyor of monster supplies in Europe.

Though she looked like nothing more than a young Indian girl — skin a perfect dark caramel, black hair twisted into a sweet princess braid, wide brown eyes shining with innocence — John had known her for nearly sixty years. Never, _never_ turn your back on an acheri was his basic philosophy. “A werewolf nicked one of the carvings on his way out a couple months ago and I didn’t realize it. Before I knew it, I had a Chinese tourist couple in here, asking if the milktooth chocolate was free trade and organic.”

“That couldn’t have ended well,” John said sympathetically.

Sanvi shrugged her tiny shoulders. “Luckily it was daylight so the shop was empty. I had to Febreeze the hell out of here to hide the scent of human, but no one’s said anything. And the wards are stronger than ever now, which I like.”

“I bet,” John snorted. “Something tells me you just like watching us squirm when we walk through them.”

This time when Sanvi smiled, she let a little of her true nature show. Her baby teeth elongated into sharpened fangs, her skin faded to the same pale almost-white color of her six-yard saree, and her eyes turned black. “A girl’s got to have her fun somehow,” she continued, her accent suddenly thicker and her voice dripping with the kind of unnameable menace that would sink into your mind like foggy, half-remembered nightmares.

With a twitch that was easily suppressed, John cleared his throat and pushed away the itch of _wrongness_ under his skin. Acheri were demons of sickness, and John was a descendant of the great Valkyrie of ancient battlefields. The idea of a creature sneaking into the bedrooms of young humans and infecting them with fatal illness before they were old enough to achieve greatness was just… _wrong_. Only the fact that Sanvi had quit such pursuits, when she’d opened the shop decades ago, helped John control his attack impulse.

“How’s business?” he asked, using the excuse of scanning the merchandise to avoid looking at her disturbing visage.

“Business is good,” Sanvi replied, watching John closely. “The Hunter/Monster/Mage accords of 2010 have really impacted our people for the better. Amazing how an almost-apocalypse puts things into perspective.” She turned, pulled a few jars off the shelves, and set them on the counter in front of John. “Brain jam? Organ Marmalade? I’ve really got the plasma to tissue ratio perfected.”

“Not today,” John answered with a tight smile. “I’m actually here for something quite specific. I need a jar of salt —”

“Which kind?” Sanvi asked briskly, standing from her stool.

“From tears of laughter,” John replied. 

“You healers. Always going for the high-brow stuff. I love it.” Sanvi pulled a little spiral notebook from her pocket and wrote down John’s request. “Anything else before I head down to inventory?”

“Do you have any Tree of Life petals in stock?” John asked, knowing it was a long shot. The Tree flowered only once every 50 years and were so highly coveted that a handful of petals cost tens of thousands of Euros. Their power was to open a user’s eyes to the answers of every challenging problem that faced them. The side-effects — a sense of peace and the complete removal of all anxiety — was what John was really after, however.

“I don’t,” Sanvi shrugged. “Sold the last of them after the angel fall earlier this year.”

“Right,” John said, shivering slightly at the memory of _that_ traumatic event. Angels were stuck-up (and self-righteously deadly) snobs in the opinion of most species that weren’t spoken of in Christian mythology. No one liked having them wandering around Earth, brushing shoulders with the ‘regular folk’ of the supernatural world.

“I _do_ have half a pound of rose petals from the Zakir Hussain Rose Garden,” Sanvi offered. “Second most peaceful place on earth, tended by the most powerful mage in Asia. They don’t have the same problem-solving properties, but the calming effect can help you focus and see through the anxiety and negativity surrounding a problem.”

“Those will work,” John agreed.

“Two minutes,” Sanvi said with a nod. Then she vanished, presumably to the doorless cellar she used to store her high-price items.

John leaned against the counter, nerves coiling in his belly as he waited.

~~~

“What’s it like?” Sherlock asked the moment John appeared at the top of the stairs to 221B. Sherlock didn’t open his eyes or move from his graceful recline, but John could see past the projection of calm indifference to the tempestuous core of him. 

“Which part?” John asked, pausing to lean against the doorframe, plain brown shopping bag hanging in his hand. He wasn’t playing coy, but he knew that Sherlock’s question was much more specific than the open-ended, useless one he’d articulated.

“You went out.”

“Shopping,” John confirmed, rustling his bag a bit. 

“Shopping,” Sherlock repeated, unmoving.

“Yes, Sherlock. Shopping. As people must, sometimes.”

“Your never-ending battles with chip and pin machines make so much more sense now.”

“I do have a temper.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know, Sherlock.”

With a huff of frustration, Sherlock rolled up on the couch. He planted his feet on the floor and his chin on his fingertips and stared at John. “You’re being willfully obtuse.”

“And you’re being astonishingly vague,” John rebutted. “What is _what_ like? Shopping? I’m quite certain that even you have managed that feat every once in awhile.”

“You…” Sherlock started, eyes dropping to the bag in John’s hand. “This morning, you broke the laws of physics right in front of me —”

“‘Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in contradiction to what we know of it,’” John quoted. “Or so said a famous ginger scientist, once. And I happen to agree with her.”

“What scientist?”

“Dana Scully.”

“Who?”

“Nevermind.”

“You —” Sherlock started, eyes dropping to the clutter of the coffee table. He stopped, closed his eyes, and tried again. “Bronson’s car was centimeters from crushing me. I could see the whites of his eyes from behind the steering wheel. I should be dead. But then you — ran faster than humanly possible? Stopped time? Flew?”

“Something like that,” John said with a sigh. “All three at once and none of them all. It’s to do with dimensions and the space in-between and, well, I really can’t tell you more because I don’t fully understand it myself. I’m a doctor, not a theoretical physicist.”

“And then you pulled a sword from _nowhere_ and stabbed him through the heart.”

“A little flashy, I suppose, but I forgot the gun, and the sword is always there, hanging just outside of normal space —” 

“A doctor,” Sherlock repeated, cracked words breaking right over John’s explanations. “And a soldier. And something more, now, too. Something I _didn’t_ see.” He looked up to meet John’s gaze and narrowed his eyes. “I’ve been over it again and again since this morning and have utterly failed to find a logical explanation. What are you? A god?” 

John snorted and straightened from the doorframe. “There are no such things as gods, Sherlock, and if there were, I wouldn’t be one.”

“But how, John? And why? If you have power like that, why haven’t you used it before? How did you manage to get yourself shot? Were you _really_ shot? How do you blend in so well?”

“Slow down, there, Mulder,” John said, holding up his hand. Perhaps John was imagining it, but that last question sounded a bit resentful. Then he turned and headed to the bathroom. 

“What’s a mulder?” Sherlock asked, getting up from the couch to follow John.

“Yes, I was really shot. I’ve never lied to you, except as an act of omission.” John set his bag on the floor next to the tub. “Mulder is another pop culture reference.”

“Why do you care about pop culture?” Sherlock asked in obvious exasperation. John watched as Sherlock gathered his dressing gown around him and sat on the toilet lid, frowning.

“Because _I_ actually live in the world, Sherlock. Always have. The Greeks and their torrid affairs, the Romans and their battle dramas, the Medieval folk and their ridiculous courtship with death… the pantheons change, the contexts change, but people don’t. The only thing that distinguishes pop culture from history and lore is time. Like how Shakespeare has shifted from being a snarky old scoundrel with the best sex jokes to a sombre master of language and romance.”

“And you know this from first hand experience?” Sherlock asked, voice sharp in a way that John would have interpreted as accusatory if he didn’t know better.

“Some,” John admitted. He bent to turn on the water and plugged the stopper on the tub, but even the steady drumbeat of water as it filled couldn’t drown out the sound of Sherlock’s heart rate skyrocketing.

And _here_ was the reaction John knew was coming. Humans were predictably breakable. It was always so much worse for the brilliant, logical, rational ones, too. It took a while for their minds to accept something outside their range of knowledge and experience, so when the knowledge of nonhuman existence finally kicked in, it hit like a freight train. 

It wasn’t exactly a panic attack, John didn’t think, as he felt more than saw Sherlock collapse in on himself. John thought of it like an infinite loop of impossible realization, where the terminating condition (acceptance of the fact that John was hundreds, possibly thousands, of years old) was impossible to meet. For now, John monitored Sherlock’s heartbeat, breathing, and other markers of physical wellness while choosing to ignore them until they became problematic. Until then, he had a bath to prepare.

The ritual didn’t exactly require concentration or magic, but John gave up a bit of himself for it anyway. The salt from tears of laughter went in first, the fine, almost powdery crystals dissolving before they sank to the bottom. John focused his thoughts on _joy_ and _happiness_ and _delight_ as he reached a hand into the water to stir, channeling what little positive energy he could find from the air around him into the water. Then came the petals, which he carefully withdrew from the paper bag with the lightest touch he could manage. He didn’t want to crush the oils out of the flower — their properties were wasted on his skin. It was Sherlock who needed their peace, their calm, their ability to soothe. Last was a small jar of white liquid that Sanvi had talked John into. It was actually dove’s blood, but John knew that even Sherlock wouldn’t find such a thing poured into his bath relaxing. At John’s request, Sanvi had enchanted it to look like nothing more than milk, and as the bath turned into something like one might see in a romance movie, John smiled.

“John —” Sherlock whispered, eyes firmly trained on John’s hands. “I… I don’t think that…”

“C’mon, Sherlock,” John encouraged gently. He straightened, turned to put his hands on Sherlock’s shoulders, and pulled him into a slow stand. He put his hands on either side of Sherlock’s face, smiling softly to counter his friend’s desperate expression. “I’ve got you.”

Sherlock swallowed and nodded, body relaxing slightly under John’s touch. Taking that as encouragement, John slid his hands downward to Sherlock’s collar bones and hooked his thumbs under the trim of the dressing gown. He pulled the thin fabric down and around Sherlock’s shoulders, slipping it free to pool on the tiled floor at their feet.

Next was the shirt, but John refused to take advantage of Sherlock’s state by letting his fingertips linger against the pale skin of Sherlock’s stomach like he wanted to. Carefully but purposefully, he pulled the shirt by the hem up and over Sherlock’s torso, pleased and surprised when Sherlock helped by lifting his arms. The grey shirt joined the dressing gown, puddling in a small mound of soft fabric that brushed against Sherlock’s bare feet.

Finally, the pyjama bottoms. John stroked Sherlock’s sharp hipbones once as he rested his hands there, then gave a single, slight tug that was all the encouragement the trousers needed to stop defying gravity.

“All right, then” John said in an approving voice. “In you get.”

For a moment, Sherlock merely blinked, and John used the opportunity to count heartbeats. 140 beats per minute — worrying, but not dangerous. Then, with all the grace of a drunken gazelle, Sherlock stumbled to the tub and all but fell in. 

John winced as water sloshed over the sides and onto the floor. It wasn’t enough of a loss to reduce the effect of the bath, but John did scoop up the wayward petals and tossed them back into the water. He laid a steadying hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, holding tight as Sherlock regained his balance and sat in the water. Sherlock’s boxers puffed comically as air escaped them until the water soaked through and plastered them to Sherlock’s newly-muscular thighs.

“I am 865 years old,” John said quietly, crouching beside the tub, meeting Sherlock’s wide eyes calmly. He pushed and pulled and prodded at Sherlock’s long limbs until Sherlock was settled with his back against the fiberglass and his arms and legs were as submerged as possible. John kept one hand in the water to continue mixing the salt, dove’s blood, and petals with the water.

“You were born 1149 AD,” Sherlock muttered. John nodded, pleased that Sherlock was the one to break the silence.

“My mother, Brynhildr, was at the Siege of Damascus, waiting in the orchards for the disaster she knew was coming. Apparently she was enjoying the apricots — a fruit she wasn’t familiar with at the time — a little too enthusiastically to not be noticed by a particular Knight Templar named Payne.”

“Weren’t the Knights Templar famous for being monk warriors?” Sherlock asked, turning his head and raising a curious eyebrow.

“Indeed. In my father’s Templar house, they were supposed to avoid physical contact with civilian women, eat no more than three meals a week, and speak only when necessary… among other rules I’ve long since forgotten.” John frowned, staring at the water, remembering a time when he was lost and broken and alone, seeking connection through emulation with a father he never knew. 

His mother had spent many an hour massaging his practice-worn muscles after trainings, telling him about Payne, who had died at Damascus. She’d spoken of Payne’s fervent desire to protect people, his dreams of becoming wealthy enough to travel the world, his admiration for the Sisters Templar, including his own commander Ermengard of Oluja. In fact, it was Payne’s faithful service to his lady knight that caught Brynhildr’s attention in the first place. Warriors who respected women were hard to come by during the Catholic rule. Brynhildr had been infatuated, and though she and Payne were only together for a few weeks, she spoke of him frequently.

Even now, the habits Brynhildr described as Payne’s were the ones John defaulted to when he had to yet again pull himself from the ashes of war. “But my mother had little patience for Christians and their foolish rules. She was hundreds of years old and my father was in his early twenties. I’m sure he was easy to seduce.” 

“Were you her only child?”

“I never asked, but probably not. I was born in the thick of the Crusades, which is how it often happens in my bloodline,” John explained. “Valkyrie blood is not rare, but manifestations of power like mine only really happen when the world is primed for war to destroy entire generations. Some sort of universal balancing mechanism, I suppose.”

“Valkyrie,” Sherlock repeated tonelessly. His heart, which had begun to slow, started rabbiting in his chest again. 

John rose from his crouch, leaving Sherlock’s side only long enough to fetch a flannel. When he returned, he sat on the toilet lid and leaned over to dip the cloth in the water. He started with Sherlock’s arms, slowly dragging the wet cotton over white skin from wrist to neck, encouraging the bespelled water to soak into Sherlock’s body. Instead of the objection John expected at the soft treatment, Sherlock sighed and relaxed fractionally.

“My mother, who had been around since the Time of Songs, was surprised that I wasn’t girl,” John continued. “Most Valkyrie are. But she later explained that it was a necessity of the era, where women were slowly losing power to men. Had I been female during the Catholics’ reign, I would never have been allowed into battle.”

“Time of Songs?” Sherlock asked, shifting slightly to allow John easier access to his other arm.

“The Viking age.” John chuckled and shook his head. “She used to tell me that my sex didn’t matter, and she wouldn’t be going easy on me even with my handicap of too much passion and not enough reason. She trained me as hard as any girl, punishing me brutally for lapses of temper and ego. She was right, though. That training in self-control was more important to my future survival than any weapons work ever has been. Nearly a millennium later and modern societies still have yet to catch up to my mother’s wisdom.”

“You have been at war much, much longer than I thought,” Sherlock complained. “Not that I could possibly have been more accurate in my deductions, having lacked the appropriate framework at the time.”

“It also probably doesn’t help that I’m not really that different from the average soldier returning from modern warfare, does it?”

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed sharply, turning his head quickly to glare at John. “I don’t understand that. You’re so much older than them. Your points of reference are so vastly different and nearly unimaginable. How is that you still suffered from classic PTSD when you came to be with me?”

“Being older than everyone else doesn’t grant me some special immunity from the normal workings of human psychology, Sherlock,” John said with a sigh, concentrating on the jut of Sherlock’s collarbones as he washed over them. “There are some things I see differently from everyone else simply thanks to perspective, but I don’t feel things so very differently. I’ve had brain scans done, you know. It would appear that most of what makes me different exists on another level of existence, not in any physical changes to my brain.”

“But you’ve seen so much. Remember so much. How do you organize it all?” Sherlock asked, narrowing his eyes at John. John bit back an inopportune chuckle, feeling Sherlock’s irritation under the words. Sherlock’s mind palace was a spectacular place, John would admit, but even with all his libraries of facts, Sherlock still held only a fraction of the knowledge that John did. No longer could he get away with ‘clearing out the meaningless to make room for the important’ argument.

“I don’t remember _everything_ ,” John shrugged. “Perhaps it’s genetic, but my life is organized by a timeline of battles. I was born just in time to be a soldier in the Fourth Crusade. One moment, I was a teenager at my mother’s knee, learning every language, every battle strategy, every bit of magic she knew, and the next I was marching with Almaric against the Muslims at Bilbeis. Within a year I ushered nearly a hundred thousand souls through their passing. When Sharwar burned Fastat — part of Cairo, now — I wasn’t even 20 yet.”

“I can’t…” Sherlock started, squeezing his eyes closed and shaking his head. "Have you always been a doctor? A healer?"

"That's the half my task, actually," John said. "You probably know this, but until the invention of bombs and automatic guns, most soldiers didn’t die quickly from wounds sustained in battle. The hacking of swords, maces, axes, and spears often caused damage that would only be fatal after infection set in or they eventually bled out. We save who we can - those strong enough and intact enough to still serve their leaders and protect their families. The rest we help move on."

"Move on?" Sherlock closed his eyes and took a shaky breath. "Please don't tell me there is a Valhalla. Even if you said you’ve been there, and had tea with Odin himself, I don't think I'd believe you."

John hummed thoughtfully. He slid an arm behind Sherlock's body and pulled, encouraging him to lean forward over his knees. Sherlock obligingly folded over and closed his eyes again, breathing steadily, trustingly, as John moved the flannel over pale skin. It was reassuring that, even under the weight of impossible revelations, Sherlock didn't think twice about being under John's care. 

With another scooped handful of water, John wet Sherlock’s hair, letting it run down his bowed head, over his shoulders, and down his back. Sherlock had never been modest or shy so John had long ago become familiar with the general shape and curve of his friend's body. But he was entranced with the path the water was taking now, the magic slowly washing away Sherlock’s tension and undercurrent of generalized fear.

Sherlock from _before_ — when he’d vanished on his foolish solo mission against a phantom enemy — had been different. His once stick-thin body had morphed into a muscular litheness that John couldn’t resist staring at appreciatively. His skin was now etched with scars that weren’t dissimilar from John’s own, if newer and fewer in number. His eyes now held the spark of ferocity and experience that meant he knew how to take a life if the occasion called for it.

John had admired and loved Sherlock — abrasive, genius, prickly arsehole that he was — before. But it was a different kind of love, one that happened when an older, jaded person coveted a creature of innocence. It was a paradoxical sort of infatuation where there was no possible way to act without tainting the very innocence that had so drawn John in the first place.

But now, as John dragged the wet cloth over Sherlock’s muscular back, scarred and strong, a more familiar ache to soothe and have and _take_ filled his hands. Sherlock was no longer as innocent as he had been on their first acquaintance. He knew death now, had invited it into his head and heart as an occasionally justifiable course of action. Gently, slowly, but with intent, John could pursue Sherlock now.

Overwhelmed with a sudden rush of fondness and possibility, John reached out with his free hand and pushed a wet curl behind Sherlock’s ear.

“Is there an afterlife?” Sherlock asked, voice painfully quiet and uncertain.

John dipped the flannel back into the water and drew it up over Sherlock’s shoulder blades. He knew that Sherlock was thinking about the times he’d been privy to that moment when a soul crossed from life to death, the light fading from their eyes right in front of Sherlock. 

“I don’t know,” John admitted. “I’ve never died, and I think that’s only way to be certain.”

“You’ve personally been witness to a millenium of death. What do you think?”

“I don’t predate Christianity, but my mother did, so I don’t believe in heaven if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It’s not,” Sherlock said firmly. “And you know it.” 

“I’ve always been a scientist, Sherlock, no matter what the profession has been called or how the rules have changed. I believe that energy is neither created nor destroyed. I believe the universes are too vast and unknowable for one to be declarative about _anything_ one can’t see and touch. And I believe I will never know what lies beyond physical death until I experience it for myself.”

“We must seem so small to you,” Sherlock said quietly, turning his head away from John. “Infantile creatures with tiny minds and terribly limited understanding.”

“Hey,” John said, catching Sherlock’s chin and turning it towards him. “That’s not true,” he said firmly, refusing to let Sherlock look away. Sherlock held John’s gaze reluctantly, embarrassment and hope warring in his expression. “People are people, and I am a person. Daily acts of love and kindness and enjoyment and hard work and perseverance never cease to amaze me. I’ve met more people than you can imagine, Sherlock, and they’re all unique. It’s really quite miraculous. Living several lifetimes doesn’t make life any less enrapturing.”

“Over a dozen, John,” Sherlock interrupted, not moving away from where John’s thumb was stroking his jaw. “Not _several_ lifetimes. A _dozen_ of them, depending on how you calculate average lifespan.”

“The point still stands.”

“What about Mary?” Sherlock blurted out, then looked immediately contrite.

“What about her?” John asked, releasing Sherlock’s jaw to begin washing his legs. “She’s not a Valkyrie, as far as we know.”

“And Brynn?”

John thought about his baby daughter, blonde-haired and blue-eyed and with the faintest whiff of potential about her. “I don’t know,” he said. “Mary and I will train her, but she’s three-quarters human. I have no idea if she’ll manifest, and if she does, it may just be to become a witch.”

“How many children have you had?” Sherlock asked, sinking into the water and stretching his legs out. John couldn’t help but stare down at Sherlock’s stomach, his own twisting with want as he reached out to wash it.

“Brynn is my first,” John said.

“Really?”

“No need to act so surprised. Love is not easy for me.”

“But you just said —”

“Admiring people is one thing, Sherlock. Watching them die in front of me, over and over again, is hard. Committing to a person who will come and go within decades, compared to my centuries, is hard. Mary is only the fourth person I’ve ever loved enough to allow myself to have, and the first to bear my child.”

“Four?” Sherlock asked, looking up at John through dark, wet eyelashes that clung to his cheeks whenever he blinked.

“My first was Nasira, who I met when I was young and foolish. I can’t think on the Holy Land without seeing her face smile at me through the date trees.” John closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the heat of the sun, the abrasion of the sand, the soft silken skin sliding under his hands as they ran through the city to find a place away from prying eyes. “Then Geoffrey, who I met when Bishop Martin ordered us all on Venetian ships to Zara. Geoff died a few years later, trying to defend a woman from being raped during the sacking of Constantinople.”

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock said, wrapping a thin, long-fingered hand around John’s wrist, which had come to settle just above Sherlock’s navel as John lost himself in thought. “I thought you weren’t gay,” he added tentatively.

“Reducing sexuality to a binary makes me deeply angry,” John admitted, thumbing the edge of Sherlock’s boxers. “Modern homophobia and understandings of sex and love have been twisted into excuses for hate. It’s upsetting to watch humankind backsliding.”

“The third?” Sherlock asked, giving John’s wrist a final hint of pressure before pulling back.

“Mary,” John answered, smiling softly. “Nasira and Geoff happened within fifty years, when I was too young to understand just how _long_ immortality can be. I lost myself in my work for a long time. I became an affectionate but disinvested lover until she came along.”

“But you left,” Sherlock pointed out.

“For a moment.”

“For _six months_ , John.”

“A moment to me, Sherlock.”

Sherlock shifted in the water and gave John an unimpressed look.

“Look,” John sighed, shaking his head. “Surely you can understand a classic attempt at self-preservation. I told Mary who I was. Where I came from. As soon as I knew I loved her, I had to tell her the truth before I could ask her to marry me. She had to know what she was getting herself into.”

“And she didn’t return the favor.”

“People like me love hard, Sherlock. That sort of attachment is too rare, too precious not to. It’s also the one thing that can kill us — letting us lower our guard enough to be vulnerable. I know _why_ she lied. I understand that she thought a Valkyrie could never love an assassin. But I do. God help me, it just made her even more perfect to me, to know that she’s always made a choice for the greatest good, even if it means not being ‘good’ herself. I just had to process, and to allow myself to believe that it was the last lie that would come between us.”

Sherlock nodded and swallowed, then looked down at the John’s hand on his stomach. “And the fourth?”

“I think you know,” John said quietly.

“ _John_ ,” Sherlock whispered, closing his eyes. “That’s not fair.”

“Why not?”

“Because you had _years_ —”

“No, I didn’t. I loved you as a child loves a flower — incapable of holding it without damaging that which make is beautiful to begin with.”

“Which was what?” Sherlock asked suspiciously. “And if you say my innocence, I swear…”

“Then I won’t say it, but at least if you think it, you’ll understand why I’m allowing myself to admit this to you now.” John moved his hand up to thumb over one of Sherlock’s more prominent scars — a shallow but ragged wound over his ribs from what was probably a dull, serrated knife.

“Ah,” Sherlock exhaled. “And Mary?”

“Mary has long been aware of my affections,” John said with a ghost of a smile. “And not only that, but she’s fully aware of the depth and intensity of my love for both of you. Love isn’t an emotion that can only be bestowed on one at a time.”

“I don’t…” Sherlock started, stopped, swallowed, and started again. “I don’t —”

“It’s all right, Sherlock,” John interrupted. He withdrew his hands, slung the flannel over the side of the tub, and reached for the shampoo. “There are many possibilities moving forward, and you can take as much time to think about them, experiment with them, as you want.”

“I’m aware of that, John,” Sherlock snapped, though the effect was somewhat ruined by his utter relaxation under John’s hands. His eyes fluttered shut as John worked the soap into his hair, mouth slightly open in pleasure. 

“I’m sure you are,” John agreed. “Sex, no sex, touching, no touching, me, me _and_ Mary, or nothing at all. Any combination of those things over the course of as many years as you want or don’t want.”

“That’s it?” Sherlock asked, cracking an eye open and tilting his head at John. His expression was scornful, but John could sense Sherlock’s relief at the lack of pressure.

“That’s it. I offer you the sort of fierce, wildly possessive affection —” John said, smirking as Sherlock interrupted with a snigger — “that comes from the love between a mortal and someone who could live forever if they managed to avoid fatal injury.”

_That_ sobered Sherlock. He straightened a little in the tub, mouth drawing down at the corners, eyes downcast to the milky water that was cooling around his waist.“In other words,” he said, “not much different from what I’ve already got from you now.

“Exactly,” John said, surprised into a laugh. He gathered water into his palms and rinsed Sherlock’s hair, heart warming at the way Sherlock closed his eyes, smirked, and tipped his head back.

“This is a lot,” Sherlock said, but the bath, and John’s honesty, had done their job. Sherlock’s heart was calm, his pulse steady, his body language and eyes free of fear. He reached up to pull John’s hand from where it had been stroking at Sherlock’s wet curls and pressed it to his bare chest. “But this is good. Very good. I think we should do this for awhile.”

“Yes,” John agreed, relief at the invitation coursing through his veins like the most powerful muscle relaxant in the world. “Good. Perfect. Now, a towel and some massage oil and a Monk marathon?”

“Obviously,” Sherlock agreed, pushing himself free of the water to stand in the tub. He looked down at the petals and the salty, white water and frowned. “What was this?”

“I’ll tell you later,” John said, grinning at the thought of Sherlock meeting Sanvi. He grabbed a towel from the shelf and wrapped it around Sherlock from behind. He settled a gentle hand on Sherlock’s throat, just under his jaw, and pulled. Sherlock’s breath caught — this time, in a _good_ way — as he let John guide him into a submissive head tilt, eyes fixed on John’s. “I have so much to show you, Sherlock. A whole new world you’ve never even dreamed of.”

Sherlock swallowed thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing pleasantly under John’s palm. “Thank you, John. But I have one last question.”

Heat rushed through John’s body, and he rubbed his nose along Sherlock’s jaw in appreciation. “What’s that?”

Sherlock exhaled slowly and turned his head to rest his cheek on John’s. “Do you have wings?”

“Oh, yes,” John replied into the corner of Sherlock’s mouth. “Would you like to see?”

With a smirk and a hand clutching tightly at his towel, Sherlock led the way to his bedroom.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Fic previews, eye candy, prompt fills, and gpoy galore [on my Tumblr](http://bootsnblossoms.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> Comments are love :)


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